!i (Not I), [Win+Mac]
Community Forums/Showcase/!i (Not I), [Win+Mac]
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 A game by David Williamson Featuring music by feeblethemighty Description !i, pronounced Not I, is a classic artillery game with a twist. Literally! Each team exist in the inverted space of the opposing team. When a shot blows a hole in the terrain of one team land is create in the other's space. The aim is to angle your shots in order to destroy the oppositions team. It is intended for two players, but there is a one player mode. Screenshots [Click to enlarge]   How To Play You can hold down [H] or [F1] at any time for on screen help. Hit [F] or [F10] to zoom in, this is useful when playing on a small monitor/laptop but will cause minor graphical glitches. Select one [.i] or two [!i] player from the title screen to start playing. Drag the grey targeting node to set the angle and power of your shot. Press [FiRE] when you are ready to shoot. Press [FLiP] to rotate the screen 180 degrees. Gravity always goes in the direct of the ground the current player is stood upon, even if the screen has been flipped. Select [EXiT] to end the current game. The primery control system is the mouse, but basic key controls are included. Exit: Escape Flip: Enter Power up/down: T/G Angle left/right: C/N, V/B Move left/right: Arrow keys Fire: Spacebar Colour scheme: On the menu screen press; 1, 2, 3 ... 8, 9, 0  Downloads ~1.1MB Windows XP/Vista/7 | Mac(intel) OS X | Linux Website www.GooeyBlob.com Feedback I'd like as much feedback as possible please. I'd like to know what systems people tried it on and whether it worked or not. If you encountered any graphical or audio glitches. What you make of the concept. How the game could be improved. And anything else you care to mention. This is a concept I've been knocking about for a while, and I finally decided to try it out. My intention was to attempt something new with the artillery game genre without just adding different weapon types. Thank you. Last edited 2011 |
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| An interesting twist :-D |
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| looks pretty neat! You wouldn't happen to have a Linux version compiled, would you? |
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| ah, so that's what you were making! If you want to email me the source, I'll make a linux executable. |
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| That's very kind of you Warpy. I'll zip it all up and email it to you later. Cheers and thanks again for your maths blog it was very useful for this project. I didn't realise there were so many Linux users around. I might have to look into getting a Linux setup myself. |
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| you should set up a linux box, most modern distributions are dead easy to install and use - and most even offer "live" CD's, which don't even require an installation to the hard drive. (I'd personally recommend Ubuntu 10.04). Linux also dual/triple/whatever boots very well installed on the same machine as other Operating Systems! |
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| Thanks to the awesomeness that is Warpy the game is now available in Linux flavour. See the first post for download. |
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| Downloading now! I bought a cheap second hard drive and installed Ubuntu on it. It's a doddle! Cheers Charlie |
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| This flipping/inverting mechanic seems to be in vogue amongst indie platformers at the moment. However, this is the first time I've seen the idea applied to an artillery game and, quite frankly, it's a stroke of genius. Like all good ideas, I'm amazed no one's thought of it before as it gives a simple game a whole new level of complexity. Great stuff! Although I think it's pretty well formed as it is and there were no glitches or bugs that I could see, there were a couple of points I noticed:- * I often found it a bit unclear as to which team mate was ready for action. Perhaps the player could emit a single visual 'sonar ping' when he becomes active. I think this would fit in with the style of the game quite well and make it more obvious as to who's next. * I found the aiming gadget a bit fiddly. Perhaps make this bigger/longer? This would also improve resolution. Also, it appears to start at a random angle each time. Would restoring this to the last angle and power for each team mate make things too easy I wonder? * The game doesn't seem to end? I know it's obvious who has won, but I want visual confirmation of my world domination, damn it! ;o) Oh, and I liked the music too. The laid back 'peace and love' hippy track is perfect for a game about genocide. :o) About the Linux distro, may I recommend Linux Mint. I believe this is an ideal distro if you're coming to Linux from Windows as it's pretty much a Windowsy version of Ubuntu (10.04 is decidedly OSXy) that is ready to go straight out of the box, even more so than Ubuntu. |
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| Thanks Yan. A few people have mentioned not being able to see clearly which man is active. I'll be looking into ways to make it more obvious. I have a three colour rule for the game so it'll probably be some sort of flashing or animated solution. The shot power and angle is carried over from the last players go. I did this on purpose to force you to take each shot fresh, as opposed to being able to make tiny adjustment over several goes like some other artillery games do. About the 'Game Over' thing. This is going to sound really lame, but I couldn't work out a way to show who'd won that was understandable both ways up. All the controls are rotational ambigrams, and I didn't want to break that consistency. I also don't want to commit to giving the teams names like 'black or 'white' as there my be a colour variant at some point. I suppose I could make the winning team jump up and down. That might work. |
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| If shooting off the side of the screen made it flip the bullet vertically, the game would be topologically equivalent to a mobius strip! You should do this. So there would be two paths to an enemy - down if you can get a clear shot, or up and across if they're hard to get to. I think you can break the rotational symmetry when the game is over - in fact the symmetry's already been broken because one side is dead and the winning team now lives in a world with a "correct" way up. |
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| Yeah, I suspected the angle and power thing was a design decision. Unfortunately, having it start in a *seemingly* random position each turn makes things look pretty messy IMHO. Perhaps they could be reset to vertical for each turn? This would also give a nice visual reminder as to which way is 'up' for those lazy players that don't flip the screen each turn...cough... The ending is a bit of an anticlimax at the moment and something definitely needs to be done about that. Even just stopping the player from taking shots would help as it just seems 'unfinished', even a bit bewildering, at the moment. I wasn't entirely sure if the game had really finished or there was some kind of bug the first time I played. The victory dance seems like a plan and maybe a musical sting or something? |
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| I just finally got a chance to download and try the Linux version. The game is really unique, and I really enjoyed playing it! It ran great on my Ubuntu 10.04 install, on a triple monitor setup. Here are my thoughts: - I agree with others that it can be difficult to tell who has the focus - I also agree with others on the "seemingly" random aiming each turn. Vertical at 50% power seems like a good default. - The music was perfect for this type of game, IMO - I think some simple "power-ups" would make the game cool. For example, each game randomly place 1 or 2 items for either team to shoot at. Give them the power up if they shoot it. Power up ideas could be: 1) Trajectory preview (for one shot) 2) Larger impact area (for one shot) 3) Shot inversion (can shoot through the opposite color space for one shot) etc... - I think with some polished graphics, this could be a really incredible game. I understand that the black/white lowres is part of your theme, I'm just not sure why you chose this - The zoom feature offers very limited utility Overall, a very impressive little game you have! |
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| Thanks JonD. I'm not planning on adding any power-ups. I agree they could improve the gameplay, but I only made the game as an exercise in design, and I think I've spent long enough on it now. The zooms usefulness is dependent on your desktop resolution, as the game runs extremely small on some setups. The zoom was a quick fix so people on those setups could still play the game. The game was featured on the Indie Games Weblog which is pretty awesome. http://www.indiegames.com/blog/2010/07/freeware_game_pick_i_david_wil.html I have updated the Windows and Mac versions with new features to address some of the great feedback the game has been getting. Downloads in the first post. The active man halo now zooms in towards the active man giving the player no doubt as to who is active. Angle and power are now reset to vertical/half power each turn. The winning team now does a victory dance. I have added rudimentary keyboard controls; Exit: Escape Flip: Enter Power up/down: T/G Angle left/right: C/N, V/B Move left/right: Arrow keys Fire: Spacebar And final I added a few colour option. On the menu screen press; 1, 2,3 ... 8, 9, 0 Have fun. |
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| Can you update the Linux download? I'd gladly compile the Linux version for you |
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| I have finally installed Linux on my virtual machine and so to try it out I've updated the Linux version of !i. I'd appreciate it if one of you Linux-y people could test it and see if everything works as it should. Here's the new Linux download. It's the first time I've ever used Linux so fingers crossed. |
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| How did you do the destructible terrain? |
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I just applied the desired colour to the pixmap. As my explosions are square then I was able to cheat a little.ClearPixels PixmapWindow(pix,x1,y1,x2,y2),colBut I could have just as easily used writepixel to draw a circle. Last edited 2011 |
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